Dear Prospective Beneficiary of DigiGait Technology

Are you interested in the DigiGait technology but worried about whether the instrumentation is worth the investment? We offer several options to “try” the DigiGait prior to purchase. The options enable researchers to experience the power of DigiGait before making a capital investment, including web demonstrations, pilot studies at our facility, or a technician coming to you with the instrumentation. These services will help you understand the applicability of DigiGait to your studies, to assure you that the technology is a worthwhile investment to advance your research funding and success. Below are details for each option:

Web Demonstration – We will set up and provide a FREE web demonstration via gotomeeting.com. From the comfort of your desk chair or conference room, you will be able to see and operate our DigiGait Imaging System located at our facility in Framingham, MA. One of us here will manage handling of the animals on the treadmill and a web camera will enable you to see and explore the DigiGait hardware, including the walking compartment in which the animal is placed, the transparent treadmill belt, the LED illumination panels, the excrement collection bins, the high-speed camera mounting hardware, and the incline and decline mechanism. You will, remotely, acquire the movies according to a protocol that you would like to see (For example, you can request the technician managing the animals to challenge the animals to walk fast up a 20 degree incline). You will then capture and store the movies from the study, run the DigiGait analyses software that automatically analyze the images, and generate dynamic gait signals. After ensuring there are no artifacts in the data, a data sheet will be generated containing numerous postural and kinematic metrics that characterize the gait of the animals from your study. Typically in a web demonstration we will study two animals, or one animal under two conditions, so that you are equipped with an excel summary that highlights similarities and differences between the two data sets. The web demonstration usually lasts about 50 minutes with adequate time for questions and answers. Contact us to set up a day and time for the web demonstration!

Sending Mice to our Facility – With this option you will ship your animals to us for study at our facility and you will experience all that DigiGait provides in your own animals [up to ten]. There is a fee of approximately $500 associated with this, which typically covers the administrative costs associated with IACUC and veterinarian approvals, receipt and caging of the animals, and care and housing until the day of gait analysis. This fee may change depending on the exact nature of the study. We will discuss with the researcher an appropriate protocol to provide the best opportunity to identify gait disturbances. For example, if the researcher is suspecting muscle weakness, we might suggest the animals pulls a weighted sled. If, for example, a rotator cuff injury, we might suggest downhill walking at a fast speed. We treat the study as if it was our own, generating video and data that the researcher can use for a grant applications, an abstract, or manuscript. The researcher receives all of the raw video, and all of the graphics and metrics from the study. In addition, researchers are welcome to join us, remotely or in person, during our study of their animals. Set this up via our contact form now!

In House Study – We will travel to your facility with the DigiGait instrumentation to study gait in up to 10 animals. The study is conducted with great thought and care, as if it was our own research, with the aim of generating publishable data. The fee for the on-site study is $1600 plus travel expenses, primarily to cover the costs of transport of the DigiGait hardware and the Mouse Specific technician’s time. The actual fee depends on the location of the study and the actual number of animals imaged and analyzed. Contact us to get this set up!

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Tom Hampton – CEO & Founder, Mouse Specifics, Inc.

“It is clear that the mouse has become essential to our understanding of the mechanisms of numerous human diseases and development of therapies, and we are happy participants in this research. Yet, tens of millions of mice are sacrificed each year. With foresight and ingenuity, we should be able to efficiently obtain more and better data from every mouse.”